Vega, Garcilaso de la, called the Inca: see Garcilaso de la Vega.

Vega Carpio, Lope de: see Lope de Vega Carpio.

Vega, brightest star in the constellation Lyra; Bayer designation Alpha Lyrae; 1992 position R.A. 18^h36.7^m, Dec. +38°47'. A white main-sequence star of spectral class A0 V, its apparent magnitude is 0.1, making it the fifth brightest star in the sky. Vega is about three times the size of the sun and 50 times as luminous. Its distance from the earth is 26 light-years. Its name is from the Arabic for "falling eagle," referring to the figure that the Arabs associated with the constellation Lyra.

Lope de Vega Carpio, Félix, 1562-1635, Spanish dramatic poet, founder of the Spanish drama, b. Madrid. Lope, born a peasant, was orphaned at an early age. He wrote the first of his nearly 1,800 plays at 12, and by 25 he was an established playwright and a celebrated wit. He was involved in countless amorous adventures and several scandals, one of which caused him to be banished from Madrid for some years. In 1588 he joined the Spanish Armada and, surviving the campaign, took up his theatrical career and acquired a lifelong patron, the duke of Sessa. Lope's first wife, Isabel de Urbino, was immortalized in his poetry and plays as Belisa. Although he wrote lyric verse and several epic poems (e.g., La hermosura de Angélica, 1502, a sequel to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso), his masterworks were his comedias. These graceful and vigorous plays combined the comic, the serious, and the ironic. Major examples are El mejor alcalde, el rey (tr. The King, the Greatest Alcade, 1936), El rey don Pedro en Madrid, El castigo sin venganza [punishment without vengeance], and Peribáñez (tr. 1937). Lope's themes were the varied aspects of honor, human dignity, justice, and the conflict of peasant and nobleman. He developed many genres, including historical drama, cloak-and-dagger love intrigues, and romantic extravaganzas, in addition to writing tragedies and religious plays. He invented a comic type known as el gracioso, which became a stalwart of Spanish theater. In 1609, Lope set down his dramatic precepts in Arte nuevo de hacer comedias [the new art of writing plays] (tr. 1914). To hold the attention of his audiences, he kept the length of his plays relatively short, consciously ignored the classical unities, convoluted his plots to produce the unexpected, and wrote so as to be easily understood by the common people. Adhering to these self-imposed rules, Lope gained the adulation of his public and the scorn of his rival, the classicist Góngora. Lope took religious orders in 1614 and achieved important church positions despite his continued love affairs. In his last years he finished La Dorotea (1632), an autobiographical novel begun in his youth. Nearly 500 of Lope's works are extant. Famed for vitality, wit, and ingenuity, they assure his position as the foremost and most prolific Spanish literary innovator.

La Vega, city (1993 pop. 73,387), central Dominican Republic, on the Camú River. La Vega is the commercial and processing center of a rich agricultural region. A religious sanctuary erected on the site of an important battle in the colonial period is nearby. The city was founded in 1495.

Garcilaso de la Vega, 1503?-1536, lyric poet of the Spanish Golden Age, b. Toledo. Garcilaso, the embodiment of the cultured and gifted courtier, was chiefly responsible for the renovation of Spanish poetry. He was the first to adapt successfully the Italian 11-syllable line to the mood and content of Spanish poetry—an innovation suggested by his friend Boscán. Garcilaso's verse, noted for its delicacy, was published with that of Boscán in 1543. It includes sonnets, elegies, odes, and three eclogues.

Garcilaso de la Vega, 1539-1616, Peruvian historian; son of the Spanish conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega and an Incan princess and therefore called the Inca. He grew up in Peru during the turbulent post-Conquest period. He went (1560) to Spain, where he first served in the army and later began to write. His most important work, The Royal Commentaries of Peru (1609-1617; tr. 1871) is a valuable source of information about the conquest of Peru and the lives and legends of the Inca.

known as El Inca

(born April 12, 1539, Cuzco, Peru—died April 24, 1616, Córdoba, Spain) One of the great Spanish chroniclers of the 16th century. Garcilaso was the illegitimate son of a conquistador and an Inca noblewoman. Raised in his father's household on a vast estate in Peru, he absorbed the traditions of both cultures. After going to Spain in 1560, he served as captain in the Spanish army against the Moors, and then he entered the priesthood. He is best known for La Florida del Ynca (an account of Hernando de Soto's expeditions north of Mexico) and his history of Peru. He was related to his namesake, the Spanish Golden Age poet Garcilaso de la Vega (b. 1503, Toledo, Spain—d. Oct. 14, 1536, Nice, duchy of Savoy).

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